Sunday, April 26, 2015

Soccer games and rewards

Oliver had his first soccer game of the season today. He was a bit rusty but overall he went out there and played and had fun.

He wasn't thrilled at the idea of playing soccer again so we told him that if he did good in his practice and played well in his game, we would take him to get some ice cream.
 
Since he did just that, we rewarded him for his hard work.
 
Luckily, our good friends told us about the grand opening of Menchies frozen yogurt. They were giving away free froyo so we were all over that.

 Oliver was a bit excited about all of this
Love us some soccer, (free) froyo and friends.  

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Family Night

I have really been loving family night. I have been really trying to be good at having family home evening this year. So far so good, but I felt like we needed more outings to go along with it.
We decided to go to temple square where we would enjoy our dinner and walk around enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery.

 The flowers were exceptional. right as you walked onto the grounds, you were surrounded by this amazing aroma of flowers. I will always go visit temple square this time of year just for that.
 The visitors center had changed so much since the last time I had been there. It was so fun to walk through and see everything.  
 



My favorite was showing Oliver the temple doors and the Christus Statue.
Growing up, we frequently visited temple square and so to be able to do this with my family was so much fun. Walking those temple grounds and telling my family stories about us growing up around here and was so exciting and of course, nostalgic for me. I love this place. I was baptized here, Sealed to Luke here and hope to raise my kids loving it as much as I do.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Easter Festivities

I love it when Eater falls on Conference weekend. I feel like it give the holiday a great purpose and really hits me as to why we are celebrating the holiday.
 
We started off the celebrations by dying Easter eggs at Amy's while the Men went out for dinner and watched the Priesthood session.  
 The kids loved having me and Amy make them mystery pictures with crayons before they dipped them in the dye. I loved how vibrant the egg colors turned out.
 That night after the husbands got home, Amy and I went out to eat at The Habit and take a much needed break from the kids. It was so nice.
 
The next morning was Easter. It was so much fun to watch these three with their Easter buckets. Man, I love having these three kids. They make everything so much better including the holidays.

Listening to conference was just what I needed that day and I was in particular blown away by the Sunday morning session.

 In between sessions we headed over to Luke's parents side for an Easter egg hunt they put on for the kids.
 
Holly was so nice to put this on for all of them.
 
 
That afternoon, we got ready to host Easter dinner with my side of the family.

And for the Easter egg hunts.

With some of the kids outgrowing the Easter egg hunt, we didn't have as many kids participating in the candy hunt which was great for this group. 
 
SO incredibly grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ. For this holiday that helps me reflect of His purpose and how it can bless and help me in my own life. What a blessing to know that because of Him, we can live again and that death will not bound us, but that we can have everlasting and eternal life if we follow his teachings and example.
 
Happy Easter.
 
 


Saturday, April 4, 2015

Spring breakin in St. George

 
Spring break! Love it!
Amy and decided to pack up the kids and head down to St. George for the week with out the husbands.
The kids were so excited about this and on the way down, Oliver got to ride with the boys and the girls would alternate riding with me to help me out with the babies.
 
These boys were already MANning up the place with their King Kong club. They were nice to include Milo.
 
 
Every night was a bath night.

 This picture in particular cracks me up. It reminds me of the blind witches from Clash of the Titans.
 We headed to the river to play but the kids were a little disappointed when we pulled up here and it wasn't a real river. Briony wasn't much happier either, but Milo loved it.
 A very unhappy Bee.
 Milo loved splashing and crawling around.
 



 While Amy took her kids to a real river to play at, I took the babies home to nap and headed outside to enjoy the peace and quiet with a good book and some great sun.


We also went to awesome park. We found it to be even more awesome this time where we figured out how to catch so many frogs in the river there. At one point I think we had 9 frogs.
 These kids were in heaven.
 Milo even wanted to play with the frogs.

 Aiden was a frog maniac. He was catching them left and right and even caught this huge one. He had a hard time letting him go
 
The first day we were there, I stubbed my little toe so hard on the shopping cart at Walmart and I am pretty sure I broke it. I could hardly walk on it that day. The next day I tried running on it. There was no way a broken toe was going to keep me from training.
One of the best parts about being in St. George is hands down the nicer weather. Us girls laid out and enjoyed those sun rays. It was still a little cold here and there but overall so comfortable.
 We were playing that I was the queen (since I got the only lounge chair) and these girls were my ladies in waiting feeding me cheese-its and frosted flakes. We teased Amy that she was the queens lazy pet cat.
Those girls.

 
 
We saved (what we thought would be) the best meal for our last night. We were looking forward to eating here all week but when we got there, there was a part of about 20 ahead of us. Our party of 10 waited over an hour to get our food, didn't get refills on anything and we were spent. Its a goo thing we really like it there otherwise we would have complained and possibly not have gone back.
We headed home and made some brownies for the kids. After baths, they all went to bed and Amy and I kept eating these brownies. So good!

 Our last day, we kept tradition and went to In and Out for our lunch just before heading home.
I wasn't sure that I really wanted to go on this trip from the beginning. I knew it would be a lot of work with Briony ad Milo and I wasn't sure how much fun it would be in the end. I am so glad I went because it was so much fun. All the kids were so good, Briony and Milo were fairly easy and I had so much help from Amy and her kids. I claim these people like my own and I am so grateful that we have one another. Can't wait to do it again.